American Routes provides a comparative and historical analysis of the migration and integration of white and free black refugees from nineteenth-century St. Domingue/Haiti to Louisiana and follows ...
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American Routes provides a comparative and historical analysis of the migration and integration of white and free black refugees from nineteenth-century St. Domingue/Haiti to Louisiana and follows their descendants over the course of two hundred years. The refugees reinforced Louisiana’s triracial system and pushed back Anglo-American racialization by several decades. But over the course of the nineteenth century, the ascendance of the Anglo-American racial system began to eclipse Louisiana’s triracial Latin/Caribbean system. The result was a racial palimpsest that transformed everyday life in southern Louisiana. White refugees and their descendants in Creole Louisiana succumbed to pressure to adopt a strict definition of whiteness as purity according to standards of the Anglo-American racial system. Those of color, however, held on to the logic of the triracial system, which allowed them to inhabit an intermediary racial group that provided a buffer against the worst effects of Jim Crow segregation. The St. Domingue/Haiti migration case foreshadows the experiences of present-day immigrants of color from Latin America and the Caribbean, many of whom chafe against the strictures of the binary US racial system and resist by refusing to be categorized as either black or white. The St. Domingue/Haiti case study is the first of its kind to compare the long-term integration experiences of white and black nineteenth-century immigrants to the United States. It fills a significant gap in studies of race and migration that have relied on the historical experience of European immigrants as the standard to which all other immigrants are compared.Less

American Routes : Racial Palimpsests and the Transformation of Race

Angel Adams Parham

Published in print: 2017-04-27

American Routes provides a comparative and historical analysis of the migration and integration of white and free black refugees from nineteenth-century St. Domingue/Haiti to Louisiana and follows their descendants over the course of two hundred years. The refugees reinforced Louisiana’s triracial system and pushed back Anglo-American racialization by several decades. But over the course of the nineteenth century, the ascendance of the Anglo-American racial system began to eclipse Louisiana’s triracial Latin/Caribbean system. The result was a racial palimpsest that transformed everyday life in southern Louisiana. White refugees and their descendants in Creole Louisiana succumbed to pressure to adopt a strict definition of whiteness as purity according to standards of the Anglo-American racial system. Those of color, however, held on to the logic of the triracial system, which allowed them to inhabit an intermediary racial group that provided a buffer against the worst effects of Jim Crow segregation. The St. Domingue/Haiti migration case foreshadows the experiences of present-day immigrants of color from Latin America and the Caribbean, many of whom chafe against the strictures of the binary US racial system and resist by refusing to be categorized as either black or white. The St. Domingue/Haiti case study is the first of its kind to compare the long-term integration experiences of white and black nineteenth-century immigrants to the United States. It fills a significant gap in studies of race and migration that have relied on the historical experience of European immigrants as the standard to which all other immigrants are compared.

Since 2002, Sunni jihadi groups have been active in Iranian Baluchistan without managing to plunge the region into chaos. This book suggests that a reason for this, besides Tehran’s military ...
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Since 2002, Sunni jihadi groups have been active in Iranian Baluchistan without managing to plunge the region into chaos. This book suggests that a reason for this, besides Tehran’s military responses, has been the quality of Khomeini and Khamenei’s relationship with a network of South-Asia-educated Sunni ulama (mawlawis) originating from the Sarbaz oasis area, in the south of Baluchistan. Educated in the religiously reformist, socially conservative South Asian Deoband School, which puts the madrasa at the centre of social life, the Sarbazi ulama had taken advantage, in Iranian territory, of the eclipse of Baluch tribal might under the Pahlavi monarchy (1925-79). They emerged then as a bulwark against Soviet influence and progressive ideologies, before rallying to Khomeini in 1979. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, they have been playing the role of a rampart against Salafi propaganda and Saudi intrigues. The book shows that, through their alliance with an Iranian Kurdish-born Muslim-Brother movement and through the promotion of a distinct ‘Sunni vote’, they have since the early 2000s contributed towards – and benefitted from – the defence by the Reformist presidents Khatami (1997-2005) and Ruhani (since 2013) of local democracy and of the minorities’ rights. They endeavoured to help, at the same time, preventing the propagation of jihadism and Sunni radicalisation to Iran – at least until the ISIS/Daesh-claimed attacks of June 2017, in Tehran, shed light on the limits of the Islamic Republic’s strategy of reliance on Deobandi ulama and Muslim-Brother preachers in the country’s Sunni-peopled peripheries.Less

The Baluch, Sunnism and the State in Iran : From Tribal to Global

Stéphane A. Dudoignon

Published in print: 2017-09-01

Since 2002, Sunni jihadi groups have been active in Iranian Baluchistan without managing to plunge the region into chaos. This book suggests that a reason for this, besides Tehran’s military responses, has been the quality of Khomeini and Khamenei’s relationship with a network of South-Asia-educated Sunni ulama (mawlawis) originating from the Sarbaz oasis area, in the south of Baluchistan. Educated in the religiously reformist, socially conservative South Asian Deoband School, which puts the madrasa at the centre of social life, the Sarbazi ulama had taken advantage, in Iranian territory, of the eclipse of Baluch tribal might under the Pahlavi monarchy (1925-79). They emerged then as a bulwark against Soviet influence and progressive ideologies, before rallying to Khomeini in 1979. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, they have been playing the role of a rampart against Salafi propaganda and Saudi intrigues. The book shows that, through their alliance with an Iranian Kurdish-born Muslim-Brother movement and through the promotion of a distinct ‘Sunni vote’, they have since the early 2000s contributed towards – and benefitted from – the defence by the Reformist presidents Khatami (1997-2005) and Ruhani (since 2013) of local democracy and of the minorities’ rights. They endeavoured to help, at the same time, preventing the propagation of jihadism and Sunni radicalisation to Iran – at least until the ISIS/Daesh-claimed attacks of June 2017, in Tehran, shed light on the limits of the Islamic Republic’s strategy of reliance on Deobandi ulama and Muslim-Brother preachers in the country’s Sunni-peopled peripheries.

This book examines interracial intimacy in the beginning of the twenty-first century, an era rife with racial contradictions in which interracial relationships are increasingly seen as ...
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This book examines interracial intimacy in the beginning of the twenty-first century, an era rife with racial contradictions in which interracial relationships are increasingly seen as forward-thinking symbols of racial progress, even as old stereotypes about illicit eroticism endure. With extensive qualitative research, this book examines the racial dynamics of everyday life for lesbian, gay, and heterosexual Black/White couples. It disputes the notion that interracial partners are enlightened subjects who have somehow managed to “get beyond” race. Instead, for many partners interracial intimacy represents not the end, but rather the beginning of a sustained process of negotiating racial differences. This research reveals the ordinary challenges that partners frequently face and the myriad ways in which race shapes partners’ interactions with each other, as well as with family members, neighbors, coworkers, and strangers.This book analyzes contemporary interracial lives through the lens of “racework”: the everyday actions and strategies by which individuals maintain close relationships in a society with deeply rooted racial inequalities. It explores how racework operates in three realms: public spaces, the internal dynamics of relationships, and in the construction of interracial identities. Comparing the experiences of gay and lesbian partners with heterosexual partners, it argues that sexuality and gender play a significant role in how partners use racework in negotiating public spaces and identities, but a minor role in how partners deal with inequalities inside their relationship. With a focus on racework, this book positions interracial intimacy as an ongoing process, rather than as a singular accomplishment.Less

Amy C. Steinbugler

Published in print: 2012-08-21

This book examines interracial intimacy in the beginning of the twenty-first century, an era rife with racial contradictions in which interracial relationships are increasingly seen as forward-thinking symbols of racial progress, even as old stereotypes about illicit eroticism endure. With extensive qualitative research, this book examines the racial dynamics of everyday life for lesbian, gay, and heterosexual Black/White couples. It disputes the notion that interracial partners are enlightened subjects who have somehow managed to “get beyond” race. Instead, for many partners interracial intimacy represents not the end, but rather the beginning of a sustained process of negotiating racial differences. This research reveals the ordinary challenges that partners frequently face and the myriad ways in which race shapes partners’ interactions with each other, as well as with family members, neighbors, coworkers, and strangers.This book analyzes contemporary interracial lives through the lens of “racework”: the everyday actions and strategies by which individuals maintain close relationships in a society with deeply rooted racial inequalities. It explores how racework operates in three realms: public spaces, the internal dynamics of relationships, and in the construction of interracial identities. Comparing the experiences of gay and lesbian partners with heterosexual partners, it argues that sexuality and gender play a significant role in how partners use racework in negotiating public spaces and identities, but a minor role in how partners deal with inequalities inside their relationship. With a focus on racework, this book positions interracial intimacy as an ongoing process, rather than as a singular accomplishment.

Can small indigenous communities survive, as distinct cultural entities, in northeast India, an area of mind-boggling ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversity? What are the choices such communities ...
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Can small indigenous communities survive, as distinct cultural entities, in northeast India, an area of mind-boggling ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversity? What are the choices such communities have, and what are some of the strategies such communities use to resist marginalization? In recent years, many such small groups are participating in large state-sponsored ethnic festivals, and organizing their own community festivals. But are these signs of their increasing agency or simply proof of their continued marginalization? How do state policies and political borders— inter-state as well as international—impact on a community’s need to perform their ethnicity? These are some of the questions that will be addressed in this work, on the basis of ethnographic fieldwork conducted among the small Tangsa community living in Assam in northeast India. The study also reveals the asymmetry in the relations between the dominant power-wielding Assamese and the Tangsa. In summary, this is a study about marginality and its consequences, about performance of ethnicity at festivals as sites for both resistance and capitulation, and about the compulsions, imposed by the state and dominant neighbours, that can force small ethnic groups to contribute to their own marginalization.Less

Dancing to the State : The Ethnic Compulsions of the Tangsa in Assam

Meenaxi Barkataki-Ruscheweyh

Published in print: 2017-06-29

Can small indigenous communities survive, as distinct cultural entities, in northeast India, an area of mind-boggling ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversity? What are the choices such communities have, and what are some of the strategies such communities use to resist marginalization? In recent years, many such small groups are participating in large state-sponsored ethnic festivals, and organizing their own community festivals. But are these signs of their increasing agency or simply proof of their continued marginalization? How do state policies and political borders— inter-state as well as international—impact on a community’s need to perform their ethnicity? These are some of the questions that will be addressed in this work, on the basis of ethnographic fieldwork conducted among the small Tangsa community living in Assam in northeast India. The study also reveals the asymmetry in the relations between the dominant power-wielding Assamese and the Tangsa. In summary, this is a study about marginality and its consequences, about performance of ethnicity at festivals as sites for both resistance and capitulation, and about the compulsions, imposed by the state and dominant neighbours, that can force small ethnic groups to contribute to their own marginalization.

This book expands and updates the nuanced historical perspective used in the first edition to understand African American family patterns. The result is a narrative that challenges conventional ...
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This book expands and updates the nuanced historical perspective used in the first edition to understand African American family patterns. The result is a narrative that challenges conventional understanding of the continuing plight of African American families. The book traces the evolution of the black family from slavery to the present, showing the cumulative effects of centuries of historical change. Beginning with a richly researched account of the impact of slavery on black families, the text points out that slavery not only caused extreme instability and suffering for families, but also established a lasting pattern of poverty that made the economic advantages of marriage unattainable for many. The book suggests a prominent role of such policy in constructing the circumstances of black family life. The revised edition updates the final chapters of this study by exploring changes in marriage patterns over time more specifically. In addition, the revised edition gives expanded consideration to the impact on the urban poor of the massive changes in the economy and of mass incarceration. The book demonstrates how each of these changes has operated to dramatically reduce the marriage options of men and women in urban communities.Less

Donna L. FranklinAngela D. James

Published in print: 1997-06-26

This book expands and updates the nuanced historical perspective used in the first edition to understand African American family patterns. The result is a narrative that challenges conventional understanding of the continuing plight of African American families. The book traces the evolution of the black family from slavery to the present, showing the cumulative effects of centuries of historical change. Beginning with a richly researched account of the impact of slavery on black families, the text points out that slavery not only caused extreme instability and suffering for families, but also established a lasting pattern of poverty that made the economic advantages of marriage unattainable for many. The book suggests a prominent role of such policy in constructing the circumstances of black family life. The revised edition updates the final chapters of this study by exploring changes in marriage patterns over time more specifically. In addition, the revised edition gives expanded consideration to the impact on the urban poor of the massive changes in the economy and of mass incarceration. The book demonstrates how each of these changes has operated to dramatically reduce the marriage options of men and women in urban communities.

The book introduces a new theory that overcomes essentializing approaches to ethnicity all the while avoiding the pitfalls of excessive constructivism. It suggests understanding ethnic/racial ...
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The book introduces a new theory that overcomes essentializing approaches to ethnicity all the while avoiding the pitfalls of excessive constructivism. It suggests understanding ethnic/racial boundaries as the outcome of a negotiation process between actors who pursue different boundary making strategies, depending on institutional incentives, their position within power hierarchies, and their pre-existing networks of alliances. This theory contrast with mainstream approaches in the social sciences, where ethnic groups are often treated as self-evident units of observation and ethnic culture and solidarity as self-explanatory variables, thus overlooking the process through which certain ethnic cleavages but not others become culturally meaningful, politically salient, and associated with dense networks of solidarity. By paying systematic attention to variation in the nature of ethnic boundaries, the book also overcomes the exclusive focus on fluidity, malleability, and contextual instability that characterizes radically constructivist approaches. This book introduces a series of epistemological principles, theoretical stances, research designs, and modes of interpretation that allow to disentangle ethnic from other processes of group formation and to assess in how far ethnic boundaries structure the allocation of resources, invite political passion, and represent primary aspects of individual identity. Using a variety of qualitative and quantitative research techniques, several chapters exemplify how this agenda can be realized in concrete empirical research: on how local residents in immigrant neighborhoods draw symbolic boundaries against each other, on the ethnic and racial composition of friendship networks, and how ethnic closure influences the cultural values of Europeans.Less

Ethnic Boundary Making : Institutions, Power, Networks

Andreas Wimmer

Published in print: 2013-01-17

The book introduces a new theory that overcomes essentializing approaches to ethnicity all the while avoiding the pitfalls of excessive constructivism. It suggests understanding ethnic/racial boundaries as the outcome of a negotiation process between actors who pursue different boundary making strategies, depending on institutional incentives, their position within power hierarchies, and their pre-existing networks of alliances. This theory contrast with mainstream approaches in the social sciences, where ethnic groups are often treated as self-evident units of observation and ethnic culture and solidarity as self-explanatory variables, thus overlooking the process through which certain ethnic cleavages but not others become culturally meaningful, politically salient, and associated with dense networks of solidarity. By paying systematic attention to variation in the nature of ethnic boundaries, the book also overcomes the exclusive focus on fluidity, malleability, and contextual instability that characterizes radically constructivist approaches. This book introduces a series of epistemological principles, theoretical stances, research designs, and modes of interpretation that allow to disentangle ethnic from other processes of group formation and to assess in how far ethnic boundaries structure the allocation of resources, invite political passion, and represent primary aspects of individual identity. Using a variety of qualitative and quantitative research techniques, several chapters exemplify how this agenda can be realized in concrete empirical research: on how local residents in immigrant neighborhoods draw symbolic boundaries against each other, on the ethnic and racial composition of friendship networks, and how ethnic closure influences the cultural values of Europeans.

This book uncovers the dynamic processes through which some white Americans become activists for racial justice, reporting accounts of the development of racial awareness drawn from in-depth ...
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This book uncovers the dynamic processes through which some white Americans become activists for racial justice, reporting accounts of the development of racial awareness drawn from in-depth interviews with fifty white activists in the fields of community organizing, education, and criminal justice reform. Drawing extensively on the interview material, the author shows how white Americans can develop a commitment to racial justice, not just because it is the right thing to do, but because they embrace the cause as their own. Contrary to much contemporary thinking on racial issues focused on altruism or interests, he finds that cognitive and rational processes alone do little to move whites to action. Rather, the motivation to take and sustain action for racial justice is profoundly moral and relational. The author shows how white activists come to find common cause with people of color when their core values are engaged, as they build relationships with people of color that lead to caring, and when they develop a vision of a racially just future which they understand to benefit everyone: themselves, other whites, and people of color. He also considers the complex dynamics and dilemmas white people face in working in multiracial organizations committed to systemic change in America's racial order, and provides a deeper understanding and appreciation of the role that white people can play in efforts to promote racial justice.Less

Fire in the Heart : How White Activists Embrace Racial Justice

Mark R. Warren

Published in print: 2010-09-01

This book uncovers the dynamic processes through which some white Americans become activists for racial justice, reporting accounts of the development of racial awareness drawn from in-depth interviews with fifty white activists in the fields of community organizing, education, and criminal justice reform. Drawing extensively on the interview material, the author shows how white Americans can develop a commitment to racial justice, not just because it is the right thing to do, but because they embrace the cause as their own. Contrary to much contemporary thinking on racial issues focused on altruism or interests, he finds that cognitive and rational processes alone do little to move whites to action. Rather, the motivation to take and sustain action for racial justice is profoundly moral and relational. The author shows how white activists come to find common cause with people of color when their core values are engaged, as they build relationships with people of color that lead to caring, and when they develop a vision of a racially just future which they understand to benefit everyone: themselves, other whites, and people of color. He also considers the complex dynamics and dilemmas white people face in working in multiracial organizations committed to systemic change in America's racial order, and provides a deeper understanding and appreciation of the role that white people can play in efforts to promote racial justice.

Land of the Cosmic Race is a richly-detailed ethnographic account of the role that race and color play in organizing the lives and thoughts of mixed-race Mexicans. It presents a ...
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Land of the Cosmic Race is a richly-detailed ethnographic account of the role that race and color play in organizing the lives and thoughts of mixed-race Mexicans. It presents a previously untold story of how individuals in contemporary urban Mexico construct their identities, attitudes, and practices in the context of a dominant national belief system.Less

Land of the Cosmic Race : Race Mixture, Racism, and Blackness in Mexico

Christina A. Sue

Published in print: 2013-02-11

Land of the Cosmic Race is a richly-detailed ethnographic account of the role that race and color play in organizing the lives and thoughts of mixed-race Mexicans. It presents a previously untold story of how individuals in contemporary urban Mexico construct their identities, attitudes, and practices in the context of a dominant national belief system.

The era of official color-blindness in Latin America has come to an end. For the first time in decades, nearly every state in Latin America now asks their citizens to identify their race or ethnicity ...
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The era of official color-blindness in Latin America has come to an end. For the first time in decades, nearly every state in Latin America now asks their citizens to identify their race or ethnicity on the national census. Most observers highlight the historic novelty of these reforms, but National Colors shows that official racial classification of citizens has a long history in Latin America. Through an analysis of the politics and practice of official ethnoracial classification in the censuses of 19 Latin American states across nearly two centuries, this book explains why most Latin American states classified their citizens by race on early national censuses, why they stopped the practice of official racial classification around midcentury, and why they reintroduced ethnoracial classification on national censuses at the dawn of the 21st century. Beyond domestic political struggles, the analysis reveals that the ways that Latin American states classified their populations from the mid-nineteenth century onward responded to changes in international criteria for how to construct a modern nation and promote national “development.” As prevailing international understandings of what made a political and cultural community a modern nation changed, so too did the ways that Latin American census officials depicted diversity within national populations. The way census officials described populations in official statistics, in turn, shaped how policymakers “saw” national populations and informed their prescriptions for national development–with consequences that still reverberate in contemporary political struggles for recognition, rights, and redress for ethnoracially marginalized populations in today’s Latin America.Less

National Colors : Racial Classification and the State in Latin America

Mara Loveman

Published in print: 2014-07-07

The era of official color-blindness in Latin America has come to an end. For the first time in decades, nearly every state in Latin America now asks their citizens to identify their race or ethnicity on the national census. Most observers highlight the historic novelty of these reforms, but National Colors shows that official racial classification of citizens has a long history in Latin America. Through an analysis of the politics and practice of official ethnoracial classification in the censuses of 19 Latin American states across nearly two centuries, this book explains why most Latin American states classified their citizens by race on early national censuses, why they stopped the practice of official racial classification around midcentury, and why they reintroduced ethnoracial classification on national censuses at the dawn of the 21st century. Beyond domestic political struggles, the analysis reveals that the ways that Latin American states classified their populations from the mid-nineteenth century onward responded to changes in international criteria for how to construct a modern nation and promote national “development.” As prevailing international understandings of what made a political and cultural community a modern nation changed, so too did the ways that Latin American census officials depicted diversity within national populations. The way census officials described populations in official statistics, in turn, shaped how policymakers “saw” national populations and informed their prescriptions for national development–with consequences that still reverberate in contemporary political struggles for recognition, rights, and redress for ethnoracially marginalized populations in today’s Latin America.

The Naxalite beginnings are by now history, and not a little nostalgia tinges the memory of these dreaded events. The leaders, the organizers, the spine, and the continuity of the movement are the ...
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The Naxalite beginnings are by now history, and not a little nostalgia tinges the memory of these dreaded events. The leaders, the organizers, the spine, and the continuity of the movement are the revolutionary intellectuals. The Naxalite movement is not principally a rural, agrarian problem as the doctrine of the Naxalites argues, but is a problem of the leading edge of the urban intelligentsia. Though the Naxalites take their name from the incident at Naxalbari in 1967, the defining attributes of the Naxalite view of revolution emerged only later. From the beginning, it was not the labouring poor of the nation or Bengal that Charu Mazumdar addressed, but, first, the disaffected revolutionary activists within the communist movement and, later, the ‘student–youth’. This book discusses the ideologies of the Naxalite terrorists, the terrorist in the Bengali society, the Communist Party of India, and the Indian economy.Less

The Naxalites and their Ideology

Rabindra Ray

Published in print: 2012-04-05

The Naxalite beginnings are by now history, and not a little nostalgia tinges the memory of these dreaded events. The leaders, the organizers, the spine, and the continuity of the movement are the revolutionary intellectuals. The Naxalite movement is not principally a rural, agrarian problem as the doctrine of the Naxalites argues, but is a problem of the leading edge of the urban intelligentsia. Though the Naxalites take their name from the incident at Naxalbari in 1967, the defining attributes of the Naxalite view of revolution emerged only later. From the beginning, it was not the labouring poor of the nation or Bengal that Charu Mazumdar addressed, but, first, the disaffected revolutionary activists within the communist movement and, later, the ‘student–youth’. This book discusses the ideologies of the Naxalite terrorists, the terrorist in the Bengali society, the Communist Party of India, and the Indian economy.

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